Outlaw by Lisa Plumley Read Free Book Online

Perhaps the animal had a better sense of direction than
she did. In any case, she wasn't moving another inch until
daybreak. Maybe then she'd be able to spot the trail.
    At least she'd managed to salvage both of
her J.G. O'Malley & Sons satchels. She could still deliver the
book orders to Tucson, and maybe even gather a few new ones. She'd
make her father proud of her if it took her last breath to
accomplish it.
    But that was in the future. Now, wedged
securely in her hiding place between two cold, filthy boulders,
Amelia thought longingly of hot chocolate, a steaming bath, and a
bed with fluffy blankets and feather pillows. Instead she'd made a
meal of stringy dried beef and a bed out of sticky, jabbing
mesquite branches.
    Even the foliage was dangerous in the
Arizona Territory.
    She was sure her poor derrière must
be perforated by now—the things had tiny thorns that poked right
through her new pink dress. It was ruined for certain, ruined after
only one wearing. She didn't even want to consider the condition of
her balmorals, after scrabbling for the past half-hour amongst the
rocks and cactus that made up the mountainside.
    Even so, sitting atop mesquite branches was
better than just plopping onto the bare ground. Amelia shuddered to
think what kinds of things lived and crawled and slithered
in the dark. Every once in a while, she heard a tell-tale
scuttling—the movements of a desert mouse, perhaps, or a snake.
Dear Lord, maybe even a coyote.
    Maybe all three.
    Scooting deeper into the crevice she'd
found, Amelia sucked in a big breath and began singing again. As
long as she was singing, she couldn't hear the mysterious screeches
and cries amongst the peculiar stringy-leafed trees just beyond her
hiding place. As long as she was singing, Amelia felt a little less
lonely. And there was no situation that a good song couldn't
improve—at least that's what Miss Fitzsimmons always told the
Briarwood ladies. At the moment, Amelia felt just desperate enough
to try it.
    Hugging herself for warmth, she took up her
song again. "I ooooonce was lost," she warbled softly, "but now am
found..."
    "Got that right," growled a masculine voice
from somewhere above her. A big hand shot down between the boulders
and clamped onto her shoulder. Amelia screamed.
    And kept on screaming.
    The hand's owner pulled hard. Another
outlaw ? The mountain must be a blessed den of thieves, she
thought crazily. She wriggled backward, then slapped both hands on
the boulders beside her for balance. Ughh, they were dusty...and
then, slimy. With an involuntary grimace, she whisked her hands
away. He pulled her the rest of the way out of the crevice.
    Amelia screamed louder, flailing her arms in
a wild attempt to escape. He pinned them to her sides and dragged
her back against him, then covered her mouth with his palm. It
tasted gritty with dirt, and smelled of tobacco. At her back, his
chest felt every bit as solid as the boulders had; so did the
bunched-up muscles in his upper arms as he tightened his hold on
her.
    "Quit your caterwauling. You'll have every
lawman within fifty miles on us."
    The poet bandit. She'd have recognized his
low-pitched, grouchy voice anyplace. Amelia stilled, trying not to
sag with defeat. He'd found her—again. And found her easily,
too.
    A powerful wave of homesickness washed over
her. Why was this happening to her, of all people? Despite her
yearnings for adventure, now that she was faced with it, Amelia
felt less like the brave heroine of one of her dime novels and more
like a person who belonged safe at home, in the quiet brick house
she shared with her family when she wasn't at Briarwood.
    Amelia just wanted to go home. She wanted to
go back to Big Pike Lake, Michigan—back to civilization. Even her
four older brothers' incessant watching over her, their teasing and
their insistence on driving her places in their dashing spider
phaeton carriages sounded wonderfully homey, now that she was
without them, and...and what was